Method and system for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees via a special attendee

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems are provide for providing a group scheduling solution in which a hard-to-schedule attendee takes over responsibility for setting the start time of an event. In accordance with one implementation, an organizer sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person. The request may be maintained in a queue for the hard-to-schedule person. The hard-to-schedule person can then review the request and select a suitable time for the meeting, thereby causing an update to be sent back to the organizer and the other attendees and indicating the appointed time for the meeting. The organizer of the meeting can update the meeting details, etc. The hard-to-schedule person may change the start time or the duration of the meeting. The hard-to-schedule person can also decline the meeting entirely.

RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is a continuation of and claims the benefit of priority of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/155,625, filed on May 23, 2002, now allowed.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The invention relates to the scheduling of meetings. More particularly, the invention relates to a time request queue for scheduling a meeting with a hard-to-schedule person.

2. Description of the Prior Art

There are people in every organization with whom it is very difficult to schedule time. Typically, these people have administrative assistants that manage their time. Though group-scheduling software exists today, booking a meeting with these hard-to-schedule people typically requires contacting the administrative assistant by some alternate mechanism, such as telephone or email, and then requesting the meeting to be scheduled. This is not a big problem in isolation. But as many such meeting requests pile up, considerable time is spent by the administrative assistant in managing the requests and allotting time for each request. Should the scheduled time need to change, as it often does, a lot of time is spent trying to communicate the change of plans to those affected.

Currently, in group scheduling software a meeting organizer fills out a meeting request by proposing a date and time for the event to a list of attendees who, in turn, accept or decline the request. In all commercial group scheduling software today, the organizer is the only person who can set any detail of the meeting, i.e. the start time, the duration, the meeting title, the descriptive text, etc.

It would be advantageous to provide a group scheduling solution that offers an organized and formalized solution to the above described time management problem, in which the desired meeting includes one person who is difficult to schedule.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The presently preferred embodiment of the invention provides a group scheduling solution that offers an organized and formalized solution to the time management problem above mentioned, in which the desired meeting includes one person who is difficult to schedule. In the inventive approach, a scheduling system is provided in which a hard-to-schedule attendee takes over responsibility for setting the start time of an event.

In the invention, a workflow is provided as follows:

-   -   The organizer sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person.         The request preferably contains the desired duration of the         meeting. The request may contain a list of attendees, location,         and other details.     -   These requests are maintained in a queue for the         hard-to-schedule person. Batching requests in a queue is a key         feature of the invention. The hard-to-schedule person, or their         proxy, can then review these requests and select a suitable time         for the meeting, set this time in a meeting request, thereby         causing an update to be sent back to the organizer and the other         attendees, thus indicating the appointed time for the meeting.     -   The organizer of the meeting can still update the meeting         details, etc. However, any changes in the start time or the         duration of the meeting must be made by the hard-to-schedule         person or their proxy.

Note: The hard-to-schedule person can also decline the meeting entirely.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing the scheduling of a meeting using a time request queue according to the invention; and

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a screen display for a calendar and timer request queue according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The presently preferred embodiment of the invention replaces state of the art group scheduling software, in which a meeting organizer fills out a meeting request by proposing a date and time for the event to a list of attendees who, in turn, accept or decline the request, with a new approach in which the hard-to-schedule attendee takes over responsibility for setting the start time of the event.

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing the scheduling of a meeting using a time request queue according to the invention.

The preferred workflow is as follows:

-   -   The organizer 100 sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person         105, e.g. a vice president of the company. The request must         contain the desired duration of the meeting, e.g. one hour. The         request may contain the list of attendees, the location, and         other details.     -   These requests are maintained in a queue for the         hard-to-schedule person 110. The hard-to-schedule person, or         their proxy, e.g. an administrative assistant, can then review         these requests and select a suitable time for the meeting 115,         e.g. 10:00 AM Monday, set this time in the meeting request 120,         causing an update 125 to be sent back to the organizer and the         other attendees indicating the appointed time 130.     -   The organizer of the meeting can still update the meeting         details, etc. 130, for example to add attendees or change the         conference room location of the meeting, and the meeting can         proceed as scheduled 135. However, any change to the start time         or duration of the meeting 140 must be made by the         hard-to-schedule person, or their proxy 110.

The hard-to-schedule person can also decline the meeting entirely.

EXAMPLE Step 1

Bill wants to set up a meeting with a couple of people on his team and with Joe, a hard-to-schedule vice-president. Bill goes into the calendar/scheduling program and creates the special time request. It is created very much like any other meeting, except that a specific start date/time is not set. Bill adds himself, his team, and Joe as attendees of the meeting. Bill indicates that the meeting will take one hour. Bill also marks Joe as a special attendee who can set the meeting time.

Step 2

After Bill creates the time request, it shows up on Joe's calendar. Time requests are collected and held until the attendee who can set the meeting time does so. FIG. 2 is an illustration of a screen display for a calendar and timer request queue according to the invention. On the left side 14 of the screen 10 is a view of two days, though it could be any of a variety of schedule views provided by calendar applications, such as a day, a week, or a month. It is shown as a reference to what meetings are currently scheduled. On the right side 12 of the screen is a list of the time requests that have not yet been assigned a specific time. The list shows the length of time requested, the requester, and the title of the meeting. Bill's meeting is highlighted by clicking it. The meeting request could be dragged and dropped onto the left side of the screen to assign it to a particular time or it could be double-clicked to bring up a more detailed dialog box in which the time can be set. Once the time request has been assigned a timeslot, it moves out of the time requests list and into the schedule.

Step 3

Joe schedules the request for 11:30 on Wednesday, October 31. Once this is done, Bill is alerted that his time request has been scheduled. The meeting request now shows up in all the attendees' schedules at the appointed time.

Many variants of the invention are contemplated. For example, it is often the case that an administrative assistant handles the scheduling requests and manages the calendars of others. The time request queue can be managed by an administrative assistant. Another embodiment involves varying the specific details that the hard-to-schedule attendee can set. For instance, it may be that the in addition to the start time, the location for the meeting is also set by the hard-to-schedule attendee.

There are also other usage scenarios. For example, a person who wants to take his car in for a checkup. Typically, there are certain preferences that the repair shop has, such as the shop's hours of operation and/or workload, subject to some of the preferences of the person who is arranging to take in his car, such as the time of day of day of week. The invention is applicable to the scheduling of an appointment with the repair shop, or any other service. Thus, the person who desires an appointment for service need only submit a request to the time request queue, and an appointment is scheduled based upon the schedule of the service, or alternatively based upon the preferences of the customer. This could include such things as setting an appointment to get a hair cut, where the appointment must be Tuesday nights between certain times.

The invention seeks to satisfy the customer preferences and the service's schedule, relative to these criteria. Thus, the hard to schedule individual, for example a doctor, can set a time and/or place, but subject to various requirements of the requestor. In such case, the needs of both parties may not overlap and the meeting may not take place. In such case, the requestor may provide alternatives or may rank his preferences to help accommodate the needs of the difficult to schedule person. Further, the hard to schedule person may have some flexibility in his schedule and could provide the requester with one or more alternatives, such as different times, days, and/or locations. The invention also supports a collaborative agenda, where the hard to schedule person may receive a proposed agenda with the request, and in setting the meeting time and/or place, may include a revised agenda with the meeting notice sent to each attendee.

Although the invention is described herein with reference to the preferred embodiment, one skilled in the art will readily appreciate that other applications may be substituted for those set forth herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the invention should only be limited by the Claims included below. 

1. A method for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees, wherein the set of attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additional attendee, the method comprising: generating a meeting request to be processed by the special attendee, wherein the meeting request designates the special attendee as a recipient of the meeting request and wherein the meeting request does not specify meeting commencement information, the meeting commencement information comprising at least one of a start time and a date, and further wherein the meeting request is acceptable by the special attendee to place a calendar event on a calendaring application; obtaining a selection by the special attendee of the meeting commencement information responsive to the meeting request; generating an updated meeting request specifying the selected meeting commencement information, wherein the updated meeting request is generated for transmission to the at least one additional attendee and is acceptable by each of the at least one additional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on the calendaring application; making a change, initiated by the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee, to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein only the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee can initiate the change, and wherein a meeting organizer responsible for generating the meeting request can neither initiate nor make the change; and causing transmission to the meeting organizer and the at least one additional attendee of a second updated meeting request comprising the change to the meeting commencement information, wherein each of the steps is implemented by group scheduling software executed on a computer.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the meeting request includes a duration of the meeting.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the meeting request includes an identification of the set of attendees designated to attend the meeting.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising obtaining from the special attendee a modification to the identification of the set of attendees responsive to the meeting request, wherein generating the updated meeting request comprises generating the updated meeting request for distribution to the at least one additional attendee identified in the modified set of attendees and not the special attendee.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing the meeting request to be displayed to the special attendee in a meeting request queue on the calendaring application on a computer display screen.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the meeting request is to be displayed in the meeting request queue until the meeting commencement information is selected by the special attendee.
 7. The method of claim 5, further comprising causing at least one calendar view to be displayed to the special attendee adjacent to the meeting request queue on the calendaring application on the computer display screen, the at least one calendar view providing a reference to a set of scheduled meetings including at least one of the start time and date of each scheduled meeting.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the selection of the meeting commencement information comprises moving a graphical display object associated with the meeting request from the meeting request queue to another location on the computer display screen associated with the at least one calendar view to assign the meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the meeting request includes a meeting agenda.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising obtaining from the special attendee a modification to the meeting agenda responsive to the meeting request, wherein generating the updated meeting request comprises generating the updated meeting request including the modified meeting agenda.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein generating an updated meeting request comprises automatically generating an updated meeting request in response to obtaining selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 12. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing distribution of the updated meeting request to only the at least one additional attendee and not the special attendee.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one additional attendee comprises the meeting organizer from which the meeting request originated.
 14. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one additional attendee comprises the meeting organizer from which the meeting request originated and at least one further additional attendee.
 15. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing the display of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view on the calendaring application on a computer display screen for each of the at least one additional attendee automatically upon selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 16. The method of claim 14, wherein causing distribution of the updated meeting request comprises: causing display of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view on the calendaring application on a computer display screen for each of the at least one further additional attendees automatically upon selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 17. The method of claim 4, wherein the updated meeting request is automatically generated in response to obtaining the modification from the special attendee.
 18. The method of claim 1, wherein the special attendee is the only recipient of the meeting request.
 19. The method of claim 8, further comprising causing display of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view on the calendaring application on the computer display screen for each of the at least one additional attendee automatically upon selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein causing the display of the updated meeting request occurs automatically in response to movement of the graphical display object associated with the meeting request from the meeting request queue to another location on the single computer display screen associated with the at least one calendar view to assign the meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.
 21. The method of claim 11, wherein the meeting request to be processed by the special attendee is generated in response to a request from the meeting organizer and wherein the updated meeting request is automatically generated without further interaction from the meeting organizer.
 22. The method of claim 11, wherein the updated meeting request is automatically caused to be distributed to the at least one additional attendee without further interaction from the meeting organizer.
 23. A system for use in a messaging environment including a set of attendees, wherein the set of attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additional attendee, the at least one additional attendee including a meeting organizer, the system comprising: a computer executing group scheduling software, wherein upon execution of the group scheduling software, the computer is operable to: cause distribution of a meeting request to be processed by the special attendee, wherein the meeting request designates the special attendee as a recipient of the meeting request and wherein the meeting request does not specify meeting commencement information, the meeting commencement information comprising at least one of a start time and a date, and further wherein the meeting request is acceptable by the special attendee to place a calendar event on a calendaring application; obtain a selection by the special attendee of the meeting commencement information responsive to the meeting request; cause distribution of an updated meeting request to the at least one additional attendee, wherein the updated meeting request specifies the selected meeting commencement information and is acceptable by each of the at least one additional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on the calendaring application; make a change, initiated by the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee, to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein only the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee can initiate the change, and wherein a meeting organizer responsible for generating the meeting request can neither initiate nor make the change; and cause transmission to the meeting organizer and the at least one additional attendee of a second updated meeting request comprising the change to the meeting commencement information.
 24. The system of claim 23, wherein the meeting request includes a duration of the meeting.
 25. The system of claim 23, wherein the meeting request includes an identification of the set of attendees designated to attend the meeting.
 26. The system of claim 25, wherein the computer is further operable to obtain from the special attendee a modification to the identification of the set of attendees responsive to the meeting request and cause the distribution of the updated meeting request to at least one additional attendee identified in the modified set of attendees and not the special attendee.
 27. The system of claim 23, wherein the computer is further operable to cause the meeting request to be displayed to the special attendee in a meeting request queue on the calendaring application on a computer display screen.
 28. The system of claim 27, wherein the meeting request is to be displayed in the meeting request queue until the meeting commencement information is selected by the special attendee.
 29. The system of claim 27, wherein the computer is further operable to cause at least one calendar display to be provided to the special attendee adjacent to the meeting request queue on the calendaring application on the computer display screen, the at least one calendar view providing a reference to at least one of an available start time and an available date associated with the special attendee and the meeting request queue providing a reference to only a set of non-scheduled meeting requests.
 30. The system of claim 29, wherein the computer is operable to receive the selection of the meeting commencement information in response to movement of a graphical display object associated with the meeting request from the meeting request queue to another location on the single computer display screen associated with the at least one calendar view that assigns the meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.
 31. The system of claim 23, wherein the meeting request includes a meeting agenda.
 32. The system of claim 31, wherein the computer is further operable to obtain from the special attendee a modification to the meeting agenda responsive to the meeting request and cause the distribution of the updated meeting request including the modified meeting agenda.
 33. The system of claim 23, wherein the computer is further operable to cause distribution of the updated meeting request automatically in response to obtaining selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 34. The system of claim 26, wherein causing distribution of the updated meeting request comprises automatically causing distribution of the updated meeting in response to obtaining the modification from the special attendee.
 35. The system of claim 23, wherein the special attendee is the only recipient of the meeting request.
 36. The system of claim 30, wherein causing distribution of the updated meeting request comprises causing display of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view on the computer display screen for each of the at least one additional attendee automatically upon selection of the meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 37. The system of claim 36, wherein causing the display of the updated meeting request occurs automatically in response to movement of the graphical display object associated with the meeting request from the meeting request queue to another location on the single computer display screen associated with the at least one calendar view to assign the meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.
 38. A method for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees, wherein the set of attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additional attendee, the method comprising: generating a meeting request from a meeting organizer to be processed only by the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee, wherein the meeting request includes an identification of the at least one additional attendee and wherein the meeting request does not specify meeting commencement information, the meeting commencement information corresponding to at least one of a start time and a date, and further wherein the meeting request is acceptable by the special attendee to place a calendar event on a calendaring application; obtaining a selection from the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee of the meeting commencement information responsive to the meeting request; in response to obtaining the selection of the meeting commencement information, automatically causing distribution of an updated meeting request only to the at least one additional attendee, wherein the updated meeting request specifies the selected meeting commencement information and wherein the updated meeting request is acceptable by each of the at least one additional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on the calendaring application; making a change, initiated by the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee, to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein only the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee can initiate the change, and wherein the meeting organizer responsible for generating the meeting request can neither initiate nor make the change; and causing transmission to the meeting organizer and the at least one additional attendee of a second updated meeting request comprising the change to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein each of the steps is implemented by group scheduling software executed on a computer.
 39. The method of claim 38, wherein the updated meeting request is automatically caused to be distributed without further interaction from the meeting organizer.
 40. A method for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees, wherein the set of attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additional attendee, the method comprising: generating, by a meeting organizer, an initial meeting request to be placed as a calendar event in a calendar event queue on a calendaring application and to be processed only by the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee, wherein the initial meeting request does not specify meeting commencement information, the meeting commencement information comprising at least one of a start time and a date; obtaining a selection by the special attendee of the meeting commencement information responsive to the initial meeting request, wherein the selected meeting commencement information is modifiable only by the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee and wherein the meeting organizer cannot make the modification; in response to the obtained selection of meeting commencement information, automatically generating, without further interaction from the meeting organizer, an updated meeting request specifying the selected meeting commencement information, wherein the updated meeting request is generated for transmission to the at least one additional attendee and is acceptable by each of the at least one additional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on the calendaring application; making a change, initiated by the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee, to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein only the special attendee or the proxy of the special attendee can initiate the change, and wherein the meeting organizer responsible for generating the meeting request can neither initiate nor make the change; and causing transmission to the meeting organizer and the at least one additional attendee of a second updated meeting request comprising the change to the selected meeting commencement information, wherein each of the steps is implemented by group scheduling software executed on a computer. 